Alcatraz
Alcatraz is the playable character and main protagonist in Crysis 2 and the novel Crysis: Legion, which contains additional personal background about him. He is a Force Recon Marine originally sent to New York to (unknowingly) combat the Ceph, before receiving the Nanosuit 2 from Prophet. Background He grew up in a Christian family and went to church religiously until he was 14, but is no longer religious by the time of Crysis 2, instead invoking parody deities such as Flying Spaghetti Monster or Ceiling Cat''Crysis: Legion'' novel by Peter Watts. Alcatraz enlisted as a Force Recon Marine in the USMC just before the Ling Shan Incident took place. Despite having severe hydrophobia after nearly drowning at the age of eight, he ranked third during the Marine Corps open water trials. His first deployment was to Sri Lanka to assist with riot clean up. During Crysis 2 he and his unit are sent via submarine to assist Prophet with the evacuation of Dr. Nathan Gould from New York. He is twenty-three years old during the events of Crysis 2.Crysis: Legion novel by Peter Watts Unlike Nomad, the protagonist from Crysis, he does not speak in-game (due to damaged lungs and vocal cords) (although it can be speculated that it is him talking during the Crysis 2 - Be the weapon ''trailer), nor does the player ever see his face (his eye can be seen in the Intro after In at the Deep End and is green). He is said to be fond of alcohol, and tequila in particular. Crysis 2 Alcatraz was with a Force Recon Marine unit coming to extract Dr. Gould thumb|right|300px|Alcatraz's injuries are shown later in the game on a monitor. The suit's fibers are shown healing into the wounds at 0:45 via a submarine travelling along the Hudson river. However, their insertion goes awry as the submarine was attacked by the Ceph leaving Alcatraz as the only apparent survivor. He was half dead and floating in and out of consciousness when he was found by Prophet. The only way Prophet saw to winning the war was to give Alcatraz the Nanosuit 2.0, which became the sole thing keeping him alive. Alcatraz suffered severe injuries, including ballistic trauma to his heart, lungs, vertebrae, and sternum; multiple ruptures in his lungs; several broken ribs; a flail chest segment; and extensive pulmonary bruising. After receiving the Nanosuit 2.0, the fibers of the suit begin healing into his wounds, fusing with his body, and essentially causing power loss or shutdown of the suit to be lethal. An example of this can be seen when Lockhart ambushes Alcatraz and Gould. When his suit is shut off after it is revealed that he relies on it to live, Alcatraz' movement is severely hindered, the edges of the suit visor can be seen, and his heartbeat can be heard loudly. It also seems that the nanosuit's symbiotic nature completely prevents removal, as seen when a surgical machine overloads during a laser suit "rip" in the Prism. Many often wonder how Prophet removed the suit prior to his suicide. It can be figured that the only reason the surgical machine overheats is because the suit is fusing ''directly onto Alcatraz, instead of just using his DNA. The "undersuit" Prophet was using may have the purpose to avoid this fusion, as Alcatraz most likely does not have one. Alcatraz awoke and learns of Prophet's suicide, who was infected with the Manhattan virus. He was contact by Dr. Gould, who mistakes him for Prophet, and was urged to come to his laboratory. Subsequently, Alcatraz comes into combat with C.E.L.L., who believe that he is Prophet because of his Nanosuit. While on his way to Gould's laboratory, Alcatraz witnesses several C.E.L.L. helicopters shooting down a Ceph dropship, which crashes not far from his position. Gould asks that he head for the crash site and search for any alien tissue samples. Alcatraz is unsuccessful, and the crash site is attacked by a Ceph soldier. Alcatraz kills it and manages to gather alien tissue from its corpse, which causes strange reactions within the deep layers of his Nanosuit. Alcatraz meets up with Gould only to be met with initial hostility when he finds out that he is not Prophet. However, when the suit plays Prophet's last recorded message, Gould relents and informs Alcatraz that ever since the suit absorbed the alien tissue, or "Nano-Catalyst", the Nanosuit's deep layers had been undergoing a mysterious processing routine with an unknown purpose. Gould theorizes that the results of the suit's processing may contain a solution to stop the Manhattan virus and combat the Ceph. Gould and Alcatraz commit to further scans at a CryNet base on Wall Street. The scans are cut short when C.E.L.L. forces led by Commander Dominic Lockhart and Lieutenant Tara Strickland ambush Alcatraz and Gould. During the middle of a prisoner transfer outside the building, the Ceph attack the CELL personnel as a massive alien spire rises from underneath the CryNet building, releasing a spore-based bioweapon that kills most of the C.E.L.L. troops in the immediate area. Alcatraz is left stranded and isolated for a period of time while dealing with a Nanosuit malfunction brought upon by the spore bio-weapon. The suit gets rebooted remotely by CryNet director Jacob Hargreave. Under Hargreave's orders, Alcatraz enters another one of the alien spires to test whether the Nanosuit's systems can interface with the aliens' technology. The experiment fails, due to the Nanosuit not being powerful enough to ensure the insertion. Alcatraz was later swept into a flood caused by the US Marines in an attempt to wipe the Ceph out of lower Manhattan. Alcatraz is later found by Marines, including his Marine comrade Chino, who survived the submarine's destruction. The Marines enlist his aid in evacuating civilians to Grand Central Terminal, the city's primary evacuation point. Hargreave contacts Alcatraz and reveals that the Nanosuit is busy analyzing the alien tissue samples that Alcatraz had previously recovered and is currently rewriting its own code to interface with alien technology. He tells Alcatraz and his marine allies to take a detour to the Hargreave-Rasch building, the primary Manhattan research building of Crynet's parent company, Hargreave-Rasch Biotechnologies. There, Alcatraz is told to find a stabilizing agent in the bio-lab to facilitate the Nanosuit's analyzing process, but C.E.L.L. operatives guarding the building under the command of Lockhart, attempt to kill him. The Hargreave-Rasch complex is attacked by a Pinger and is completely flooded, washing Alcatraz out of the building and leaving him unable to enter the bio-lab. Left on a dead end, Alcatraz is told by Hargreave to regroup with the marines at Grand Central to help evacuate the civilians. At the terminal, Alcatraz is reunited with Gould and Colonel Sherman Barclay. The latter requested Alcatraz's help in defending Grand Central when it then became overrun by the Ceph and Alcatraz is able to hold them off long enough for the evacuation trains to depart, and escapes the building's destruction. Due to the hasty and incomplete evacuation from Grand Central, Alcatraz is then tasked with defending a secondary evacuation point at Times Square, when another alien spire rises from the ground. By this time, the Nanosuit had finished processing the alien spores, and Alcatraz manages to enter the spire, allowing his Nanosuit to interface with it and re-purpose the spores to be lethal to the Ceph. This causes a cataclysmic self-destruction of the Ceph in the area, and apparently removes all traces of the biological warfare agent. With the evacuation from Times Square complete, Hargreave instructs Alcatraz to make his way to Roosevelt Island. There, Alcatraz infiltrates CryNet's complex, the Prism, where Hargreave resides. After a failed attempt by Commander Lockhart's forces stationed on Roosevelt Island to trap and kill Alcatraz, Hargreave orders Alcatraz to kill Lockhart and end his interference once and for all. Alcatraz manages to kill Lockhart, but as he makes his way through the island, he is captured by Hargreave, who wants the Nanosuit for himself so that he can finish off the Ceph personally. Hargreave then attempts to remove the Nanosuit from Alcatraz's body. However, the Nanosuit rejects its removal from Alcatraz since it had already completely assimilated with its wearer, revealing memories of Prophet's fallout with Hargreave in the process. Alcatraz is saved by Strickland, who reveals herself to be an undercover CIA operative, and the one responsible for ordering the original deployment of Alcatraz and his Force Recon team to New York. Strickland tells Alcatraz to capture Hargreave, but upon entering Hargreave's private office, Alcatraz discovers that Hargreave have been in a vegetative state for nearly 50 years, and that his consciousness is only able to communicate and interact through the use of an entirely computerized system. Alcatraz is given by Hargreave, a last Nanosuit upgrade, the "Tunguska Iteration", before the Ceph invade the island. Hargreave triggers a countdown timer for the self-destruct system of the complex, and convinces the remaining C.E.L.L. forces guarding the Crynet Prism complex to aid Alcatraz's exfiltration. Alcatraz barely escapes the massive explosion, which destroys much of Roosevelt Island and the Queensboro Bridge. Alcatraz reunites with Gould, Strickland and Chino. Alcatraz is notified by Colonel Barclay that the US Department of Defense, in a desperate plan to wipe out the Ceph and prevent the spread of the Manhattan Virus, has decided to launch a nuclear strike against Manhattan Island, with little regard to collateral damage and nuclear fallout. Barclay asserted that the strike could not be avoided unless Alcatraz could somehow resolve the situation within 20 minutes. As Alcatraz and his comrades make their way through the city toward the center of the alien infestation, a massive alien "litho-ship" rises out of the ground beneath Central Park, lifting a large section of the park into the air. With the peripheral aid of Gould, Strickland, and Barclay, Alcatraz assaults the floating section of Central Park and succeeds in making his way to the alien spire at its center, which serves as a massive dispersal point for the alien spore bio-weapon. He enters the spire, and his Nanosuit, with the Tunguska Iteration upgrade, is able to repurpose the spire's bio-weapon to turn against the Ceph, killing all Ceph in New York in the process. Alcatraz, while unconscious, communicates with Prophet (whose memories, experiences, and personality had been stored in the suit), who states that, while the mission in New York is a success, their work is not yet over, since the Ceph, who had been present on Earth since prehistoric times, had built constructs all over the world, and were not only limited to New York and the Lingshan Islands. The Nanosuit, before rebooting again, states that assimilation is complete, and Prophet's memories become "assimilated" into Alcatraz. Upon waking up in Central Park, Alcatraz receives a broadcast from Karl Ernst Rasch asking for his name. Alcatraz responds with'' "They call me Prophet."'' Trivia *Crytek previously announced that the player would not be Nomad in an earlier video. *It is implied that Alcatraz is the one speaking in the Crysis 2 'Be the Weapon' trailer. *He may be called Alcatraz because he is "trapped" inside the suit, like Alcatraz prison. *Alcatraz's force recon unit may have been codenamed after prisons e.g Alcatraz , Chino . *Alcatraz dies cannonically twice (once in Dead Man Waliking after falling out of a helicopter and being exposed to Armed Ceph Spore (both with the suit disabled); and another time after being exposed to Armed Ceph Spore, falling out of the Ceph Spear), but is revived by the Defibrilator in both cases. References Category:Crysis 2 Characters